Reviews with content warning for Addiction - Mijn jaar van rust en kalmte

Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Mijn jaar van rust en kalmte by Ottessa Moshfegh

855 reviews

natlwlyn's review against another edition

dark informative tense slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i did not expect myself to like this book. after all, this book is rated as a 3 star average. the story is narrated by an unreliable narrator that came off as a detached privileged white woman. the character is meant to be written to be unlikable. to put it simply, she wants to sleep for a long period of time to be born as a new person. the story narrates her thoughts; her roller coaster of emotions, her way of handling grief, her past, her thoughts, her relationships. this book might not be everyone's cup of tea and i can see why some people rated the book poorly. but to me, personally, this book is worth the read because the narrations are really detailed, making you taste the character's experience

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mithalogy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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claudc's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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bleaksalad's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I picked up My Year Of Rest and Relaxation after finishing Eileen. I'm becoming quite a fan of Otessa, but this one didn't stick with me as much as Eileen did. I love a disgusting, troubled woman coming to terms with herself, however this unnnamed narrator fell a little flat for me. With Eileen, I felt her desperation for change from who she was, and with this narrator the feeling wasn't as intense.

I did think that the commentary on grief and the handling of it was artful. Experiencing Reva's mom's funeral from the perspective of our orphaned narrator was truly the peak of this story. Reva herself was such a gripping character, and for the narrator to patronize her over and over again only to realize Reva was living the life she was after all along in those tragic final moments was incredibly thought provoking.

Overall, I do think the writing for MYORAR was stunning and the disecting of such a complex character was fun. I reccomend if your the type of person to scroll your day away on tik tok or if you squander your potential often. You'll find comfort in this book.

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miekss's review against another edition

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medium-paced

3.0

I liked the writing style. The protagonists internal monlogue featured sadistic dark humour and a deep desire for nothingness and really leaning into the depression. I’m so intrigued about the doctor and their story.

I suddenly feel the need to buy 2 coffees, one to have for the walk home, of course.

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morgasm's review against another edition

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dark funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

It was a book, for sure. The “I support women’s wrongs” vibes were there but the actions weren’t severe/weird enough to make it intriguing so instead I found some of the plot just repetitive. I know the MC is meant to be unlikeable/a bad person, but I still wasn’t invested enough to be satisfied by the read

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melitorian's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Just finished the book, and the word that comes to mind is catharsis. I kept wondering where this was all going — did I need to go through reading all of this to get to "the point?" Maybe not. But, am I glad at where we arrived after getting there? Definitely.

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juulstizya's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

reva deserved better

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poucepooffy's review against another edition

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dark funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Got me out of my reading slump, started to read on a sunny day outside and continued to read all through the night. Very intriguing. Read like a train.

I’ve heard people say this book was depressing, which I understand, but I did not feel sad after reading it. Really appreciated the honesty!

Guess you either love it or hate it, I loved it.

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megmei's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I knew going into this book that it had divided a great deal of its readers. What I didn’t expect was for it to leave such a strong impression on me, and that I might consider myself a new fan of Moshfegh’s work.

Briefly, the plot of My Year of Rest and Relaxation (MYORAR, for short) can be most easily described as ‘Sleeping Beauty for the modern misanthrope’. I was immediately addicted to the stark contrast of New York at the turn of the millenium, full of potential, evoking the imagery of the Sex and the City, but against the backdrop of the narrator’s crumbling mental health. From the start, she knows she’s beautiful, white, blonde, and most importantly skinny, and yet she is not even remotely moved by it. On one hand you want to hate her, especially if you are nothing like her, but on the other hand, there is something reflected in her descent into absurd solipsism that just resonates with the experience of being a 20-something year old woman stuck in a life she hates, in a world that she feels is just vapid and meaningless.

I think where a lot of people get stuck with this is that they expect something weird and trippy when really this is just a very microscopic view into a voice that I think a lot of us have in our heads, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. We all have something mean, inexecusable and selfish in us. It’s natural, we are only human. What is interesting about this, is that the narrator allows herself almost reverently to succumb to all of her laziest instincts during a time of mental distress, to truly throw herself into this idea of sleeping through her own character development, hoping to fix these awful parts of herself. Perhaps this is exposing myself a little bit here for identifying so strongly with that, but if I could fix everything wrong with my brain by doing what the narrator does, I would. And then it is all written captivatingly by Mosfegh. I liken my experience a little bit to watching a car crash that I just couldn’t look away from: I was hooked, waiting to know how this would go wrong for her.

I was surprised at how this novel also deals quite deeply with the dissolution of a friendship that is steeped in the kind of toxicity that comes from two people who are just terrible for each other.

Reva and the narrator’s relationship feels like the kind of ‘frenemy’ trope that was just rampant in the early 2000s media (Serena and Blair?). Constantly competing, and yet neither really understanding why, or why they continue the friendship. Perhaps this resonated so deeply with me because as I enter my 30s, I’ve recently experienced a similar phenomenon in my own life. This probably isn’t rare. You enter your late 20s, and realise you are no longer the same people you were. Suddenly a friendship that spans decades leaves both parties sorely unsatisfied, and in some respects, deeply unhappy.

Reva is only ever portrayed through the eyes of the narrator, and she flickers between frank dislike, to moments where she is almost convincing herself that this friendship is worth it, in the moments where she seeks comfort in the banal, even if it she knows it doesn’t serve either of them. Reva is an important foil to the narrator, as she is living her life at almost a frenetic energy, going through the trials and tribulations of life head on, while the main character avoids it. She is constantly entering and leaving scenes going from one event to another, doing sit ups, etc. She is clearly competing with the narrator, consciously or not, and is similarly dismissive of the narrators struggles by constantly insisting that she’s beautiful, rich, lucky. Both are clearly dealing with their own struggles, one more outwardly than the other, and both are quite sad in their existences. I found it strangely cathartic to read these two battle each other through this friendship in a way that was so uncomfortable and sad, and yet deeply familiar and reassuring.

Mosfegh manages to find moments of levity in this tale, somehow, even if it’s tongue in cheek, or outright strange. The narrator’s obsession with Whoopi Goldberg, for example, was just such a specific character choice that despite it’s absurdity, it made sense. The interludes with the few men in this story also act as punctuation marks that create much more tension than I was expecting from a book about sleeping for year. The ending had me looking out of a window like Robert Pattinson in complete shock (iykyk). But the poignantly brief mention of it brought the rest of the year in MYORAR into sharp clarity and highlighted that the minutiae of our private suffering is so easily outshone in a moment of wild tragedy.

Maybe MYORAR just hits better and closer to home if you’ve experienced the deeply monotonous greyness of depression, and the desperately unempowered desire to change despite it all. I think you have to be a bit mentally unwell for this to really resonate with you. Take that as you will, but I personally was delighted by this book and I can’t wait to try more of Mosfegh’s writing.

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